HELENA, Mont.-There is seemingly a never-ending pool of third parties offering technology solutions for critical services. But a number of credit unions continue to report having a hard time finding the right fit, especially when it comes to customer relationship management (CRM) software.
"The direction we need to move in is having a good, automated onboarding system that provides a record of all interactions and exchanges with members, so we have an easily accessible case history on how we assisted that member in the past," said Helena Community Credit Union President Greg Strizich.
With 14,750 members, 52 employees, four branches and $150-million in assets, Helena Community has experienced a few CRM-related trial and error cycles. "We hired a third party to develop content management software five years ago, but we outgrew that about two years ago as we maxed out the program's capacity. Instead of trying to fix it, we wanted to search for a better solution," said Strizich.
The next solution selected was out-of-the-box software, which was soon deemed a failure due to its inability to fully integrate with the credit union's core processor. "It worked with our Outlook program, but we couldn't upload contact lists and there were problems with internal sharing of information," said Strizich. "In the end it was taking up too much time and was frustrating."
As is the case with all new technologies, pricing is a major consideration when seeking solutions. And for many credit unions that do opt for "full CRM intelligence," not all components of the suite are always used. "We are an investor in the CUSO, CU Source, which does data processing service for 23 credit unions. The feedback we get is that not many are utilizing the potential of the content management solution and that is a concern we have with CRM because it is expensive," said Strizich.
Despite not finding the right technology fit, Helena Community CU continues to welcome between 120 and 150 new members each month. This is accomplished, in part, due to its third-party relationship with the Raddon Financial Group, which manages its mailing campaigns geared at onboarding and upselling services.
Raddon supplies a report card of sorts and the credit union continually receives a high rate of return, especially with loan generation and cross-selling. In the latter category, Raddon finds that the highest performing credit unions have a return rate of 15.9%. In the same category, Helena Community CU had a 14.8% rate of return (as of December 2012). "These numbers reflect that we have worked hard at increasing product services in our outbound efforts," said Strizich.
Strizich, and his team, continually research technology solutions that will enhance service offerings. In doing so, he reaches out to colleagues. "I speak to a lot of credit unions on the eastern end of Washington state, and these are successful, technologically advanced credit unions. I'm surprised that many only use Excel for on-boarding."
While Helena Community CU has managed to be successful despite platform setbacks, Strizich said he recently made the decision to purchase a full service on-boarding technology suite.
Ready To Utilize Everything
"In the end we thought Symitar had a more robust offering. We have to prepare for this so we are ready to utilize all the platform has to offer, which will require a lot of training."
The projected rollout date is early 2014, but that wasn't Strizich's decision. "There is a lot of demand for their product and we were slotted for next year. Between now and then we will develop a bridge solution and continue to utilize our relationship with Raddon in identifying new members as well as concentrating on serving existing members, because it far more expensive to lose a member."
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